Every four years, I find myself involved in the same discussion. The latest was thanks to Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt. What is the limit of human performance? How much faster, farther, and higher can we go before we reach our limit? How can we achieve records that are broken only once in a lifetime, and not several times in one competition? When will humans just max out our physiology? It's not that hard to imagine reaching an end to the human body's (non-drug enhanced) abilities. Especially because in one major world sport, it's already happened. But first, let's check the track and the pool.
Running Down a Dream
Consider the progression of the world record for the 100-m dash. In 1912, Don Lippincott set the record in Stockholm, Sweden at 10.6 seconds. That mark was broken five times by 1960 and was down to 10.0 seconds. By the early 1970s, the 10-second barrier was broken, and (ignoring known performance-enhancing drug users), it was down to 9.84 by 1996. By 2008, in the (hopefully) post-steriod era that saw many records rescinded as their owners tested positive, Usain Bolt crushed the record by a total of .05 (in two successive races), jogging the last ten meters to a mind blowing 9.69. Many believe that had he run as hard as he could, he would have broken 9.60, finally shaving one full second from the first record set by Don Lippincott 96 years ago.
Will it take athletes 100 years to go one second faster? One second may not seem like a lot, but consider the percentages. It is an improvement of about 9.4%. During that same time span, the record for the 800-m (half-mile) went from 1:51.9 to 1:41.11. That's a change of roughly 9.6%. But running isn't the only sport seeing records fall like this, however.
Splish Splash, And the Records Crash
Swimming, as you may have expected, has seen even greater improvements in speed as the sport has become more common around the world. When Michael Phelps broke the 200-m freestyle record in Beijing, it represented about a 32% decrease in time over the record set in 1910.
Everyone knows that measurable records based on speed and distance fall all the time. That stands in contrast to "counting records" such as number of games won, number of homeruns, etc. But there is one performance marker that really hasn't fallen: how fast can someone throw a baseball.?
Van Pelt Asks the Question
 ESPN Radio personality Scott Van Pelt asked why (besides the lack of accurate measuring equipment) there haven't been more pitchers who have thrown over 100 mph in their career. That list includes Walter Johnson, who debuted in 1907; Bob Feller, of the 1940's and 1950s; Nolan Ryan of the 1970s and 1980s; and, currently, pitchers like Billy Wagner (and 19 others contemporaries of Wagner, according to some sources), who have hit 101 MPH or better, at least once.
So how is it that Johnson, Feller, Ryan, and Wagner - pitchers 100 years apart - hit just about the same maximum velocity? Some people say that modern-day hurlers Joel Zumaya and Mark Wohlers have broken 103 mph, but some stadiums have less than reliable radar guns and there is much debate over whether or not the readings were accurate. Even with Zumaya supposedly throwing 104.8 on October 10, 2006, something is amiss.
In the next edition of this blog, I will dig into the biomechanical/biomedical reasons as to why baseball has not kept up with the improvements in speed seen by most other major sports around the world.
Resources:
http://www.slate.com/id/2116402/
http://www.slate.com/id/2116402/sidebar/2116451/
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/fastest-pitcher-in-baseball.shtml
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7630/news;_ylt=AitWQibWYJ0f0N3JGpQ3XCaFCLcF
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Re: Reaching the Limit of Human Performance (Part 1)
